Please? Can't I have just one more justice?
Film watched: Final Justice
The episode is available in the Gizmoplex here
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The Segments:
Prologue- Servo, having studied the lyrics of Yes's "Owner of a Lonely Heart", demands that they make other comparisons, such as the owner of a lonely heart versus the owner of a perfectly functional cheese slicer, and the owner of a parcel of land in Montana versus the owner of a pie.
Segment 1
- The crew is suddenly bombarded with orchestra hits that go off whenever they mention "Owner of a Lonely Heart". To help increase productivity in the workplace, Pearl introduces the concept of humor to Castle Forrester, but her sense of humor is painfully forced and ultimately very depressing.
Segment 2
- Mike and the Bots complain to Pearl about the re-used shot of the sheriff being shot. They do so while Mike keeps tripping over and over. As a result, Pearl promises to never again send them "another bad movie starring Joe Don Baker in which a dark-haired sheriff in a small role gets shot and slides down a wall twice."
Segment 3
- Crow and Servo think that Goosio, friend to all Maltese children, is a sick joke on Mike's part. Sadly, it turns out it really was Goosio, sent to the Satellite by Malta as a goodwill ambassador... which Crow and Servo don't find out until after they've killed him.
Segment 4
- Crow presents a report on Malta's geography, history, and wimpy men.
Segment 5
- Fed up by the bots' food jokes, Mike storms out of the theater. Knowing that Joel escaped after watching another bad Joe Don Baker movie, Mike tries to escape in the same way, even leaving the bots a plaque with a quote from his favorite movie. Crow and Servo inform him that he's sitting in the water heater and try to reassure him that everything's going to be okay. Meanwhile, it's Funny Dress-Up Day at Castle Forrester, but Brain Guy is preparing for his date.
The Mystery Science Theater 3000 presentation of Final Justice includes these tropes:
- A Taste of Their Own Medicine: After the movie's incompetent editing leads to showing the same person sliding down a wall twice, Mike and the bots get back at Pearl by complaining while Mike trips over and over again the background. It finally gets to her, so she promises she'll no longer send them bad movies... where that exact thing happens.
- Ambiguously Gay: Observer wears a Leather Man getup, and it has nothing to do with Wacky Dress Up Day—he just has
a date. - Angst Dissonance: Invoked while Palermo calls out to Tony following Geronimo's gunning him down. The gang hilariously mock him with sniveling whining.
- Big Eater: While Geronimo's size if nothing else certainly implies this, the riffing on it takes it to new heights - culminating in Crow and Servo singing about how Geronimo will steal your lunch over the credits.
- Everyone Has Standards: By the credits song, Mike thinks they've overdone the food jokes in relation to Joe Don Baker and leaves in disgust.
- Bookends: Mike tries to invoke this trope near the end of the episode, believing he is finally allowed to escape from the Satellite of Love now that he has watched "a terrible Joe Don Baker movie", because Joel made his escape after doing the same thing. Servo and Crow have to explain to him that it doesn't work that way.
- Bowdlerization: One of the more extensive in MST3K history; the cut-for-TV version used on the show has all the cursing removed with obvious audio dropouts, as well as excising the original's stripper subplot completely and censoring what few shots of the dancers there are, all of which gets mocked ruthlessly. Even the repeated shot of the murdered sheriff sliding down the wall was an attempt by the distributor to edit out the smear of blood left by the body; that partner's death scene, and all other scenes of gore, were removed or trimmed down.
- The Rifftrax version is enjoyed specifically for adding all that back on.
- Call-Back: PACKERS!!!!
- A bit of a stretch, but Goosio refers to himself as "friend to Maltese children everywhere", a possible reference to the Gamera episodes (Gamera was called "friend to all children").
- Cheese-Eating Surrender Monkeys: Crow accuses Maltese men of being this.
- Continuity Nod: Joe Don Baker is the star of Mitchell. Never forget that.
- Mike tries to re-enact Joel's escape from the Mitchell episode — he convinces himself that he's due after surviving a bad Joe Don Baker movie.
- Curse Cut Short: "You son of a-"
- Everyone Has Standards: Despite mocking Joe Don's weight himself through the movie, the sheer number of food jokes the bots make during the credits causes Mike to walk out of the theater in disgust.
- Evil Counterpart: Servo at one point identifies a mafioso who could only be Geronimo's evil twin - "Giuseppe Don Baker" if you will.
- Fatal Family Photo: Commented on during the pre-Retirony scene between Geronimo and his partner. If you listen closely, when Geronimo says, "You're a lucky man Bob", you can hear Crow mutter, "Uh oh..." And then when Bob is shot, Servo says, "Yep..."
- Fetish Retardant: Invoked when Geronimo seeks information from a prostitute:Geronimo: Excuse me...
Crow: (as prostitute) Not for any price. - Gasshole: All three riffers turn Joe Don into one, but special mention has to go to Servo; Kevin Murphy has a gift for phony belching.
- God Is Dead: Palermo tries to evade Geronimo by dressing in a priest's robe, but gets pestered by a woman seeking a confession. Crows references this in response.Crow (as Palermo): "God is dead. We're closed."
- "Groundhog Day" Loop: In one of the host segments, Mike does the same pratfall over and over again while the bots are talking to Pearl in reference to a shot of a man sliding down the wall at the beginning of the movie being blatantly used twice during a gunfight scene.
- The trope applies to the movie's plot in general; Geronimo oversteps his bounds as an American cop in Malta, is chided by his superiors, goes out and defies orders again, and wakes up in a jail cell, ready to be chewed out again. It's repeated so many times that Mike laments that they're stuck in a mobius strip of a movie.
- I'll Kill You!: "But I won't curse you!"
- Infodump: Related to Call-Back:Servo: I'm sorry buddy, but you're not going anywhere.
Crow: Nope.
Mike: But I just suffered through a really bad Joe Don Baker movie!
Servo: Unrelated, Mike, sorry. You see, Gypsy sent Joel back to Earth in an escape pod she hid in a box of Hamdingers.
Crow: Yeah.
Servo: There are no more escape pods, Mike!
Crow: You do know that you're sitting in the water heater, doncha?
(Beat)
Mike: Yeah, I know. - Insane Troll Logic: Mike brings this up about Servo's response to Owner of a Lonely Heart saying that the band Yes isn't responsible for providing every possible permutation of "owner of an x, much better than the owner of a y". Servo's "logic" is that "they brought it up" and that the lack of elaboration on the worth of a owner of a lonely heart vs the owner of a broken heart meant that there were many other unexplored avenues they could have taken, but didn't.
- Irony: Despite all the fat jokes made throughout this episode, the character Geronimo in the movie was actually trying to go on a diet, bypassing beer and donuts and opting for milknote .
- Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: Servo claims there's no more escape pods - but two years before they played with and destroyed three escape rocket ships.
- The Oldest Profession: During the credits, upon seeing a character named "Prostitute":Mike: Joe Don Baker's personal prostitute made it into the movie.
- Overly Long Gag: "Mike's tripping!"
- Overly Narrow Superlative: "Okay! I promise I will never send another bad movie with Joe Don Baker in which a dark-haired sheriff in a small role gets shot and slides down a wall twice!"
- Potty Emergency: During the end credits:Singer: You better run...
Mike: 'Cause he's got the runs. - Ridiculously Cute Critter: Goosio, the official mascot of Malta. The Bots think he's just something Mike made and brutally beat him. Turns out it was the real Goosio, who came to the SOL as a goodwill ambassador."Don't tell the Maltese."
- Running Gag: The movie had a lot of swearing, so it had to be edited for the show. This resulted in a lot of silence gaps, so Mike and the bots naturally called attention to sentences that ended abruptly.
- Fat jokes.
- Geronimo's female partner looks a little like Elaine Benes from Seinfeld, so a few jokes are made about her."None of them are 'sponge-worthy.'"
- Mentions of Geronimo's name are often accompanied by Tom Servo shouting, "Geronimo!" and jumping off his seat like a skydiver.Mike: Yup, there he goes.
- Schiff One-Liner: Mike and the bots are annoyed that there isn't one; the movie just abruptly stops.Geronimo: The big one's got my badge. Will you get it for me?
(freeze frame, then credits roll)
Crow: What?!
Mike: What kind of a great last line is that?! - Shout-Out: A random background character in one scene is wearing suspenders, so Mike says "Nanu nanu!"
- Show Within a Show: The crew's joking references to the show Supermonk in the jet ski chase scene.
- Song Parody: As Geronimo walks down a busy street, Mike sings, "Everybody's burpin' at me. I can't smell a thing they're eatin'."
- Sting: Mike and the Bots inadvertently cause "Yes orchestra hits" to go off every time they mention "Owner of a Lonely Heart" due to overmilking the gag in the opening host segment.
- Take That!: There are a couple of gags aimed at the then-famously unstable Italian national government.Servo: (as Tony is gunned down) In the time it takes for him to fall, the Italian government changes three times.
- Joe Don Baker had already pissed off Best Brains with his less-than-flattering response to their riffing of Mitchell. Final Justice allowed the writers to attack back in full force (see With Lyrics).
- One towards the end of the episode.
Mike: Well, how about if we see a really good Joe Don Baker movie?Crow: Well, I think I can guarantee you that's never gonna happen, Mike.note - What the Hell, Hero?: Goosio! Nooooo!
- Geronimo winning by being Combat Pragmatist earned this reaction.Servo: Our hero: a big, stinky cheater!
- Geronimo winning by being Combat Pragmatist earned this reaction.
- With Lyrics: The closing credits music. ("Meatballs fried in laa-aard!")
- You Are Fat: And don't you forget it, Joe Don. The number of size and food jokes increases almost exponentially from Mitchell, as Baker was even more stout a decade later; Mike even starts to feel a little bad about it by the end and asks that the Bots give the poor guy a break.
